House panel proposes education savings account for disabled and gifted students (state money parents could tap for options outside public schools)

Leslie Postal

Parents of some Florida students could swap a seat in a public school for a state-funded savings account they could use to purchase private educational services, under a proposal a House subcommittee outlined today. The still-in-draft-stages plan seems a narrower version of a controversial proposal Gov. Rick Scott floated a few years ago that some dubbed "vouchers for all."

Parents who opted for the program, according to information provided by the panel, would register as a home-schooling family, then could use money in their child's account to pay for private school tuition, homeschooling materials, tutoring, therapy and other approved services.

The amount the state put in each child's account would be consistent with the funding provided to a public school for a student with those educational needs. An outside "scholarship funding organization" would maintain the accounts and reimburse parents for qualifying expenses.

Rep. Michael Bileca, R-Miami, said the goal was to help a "subset of students" for whom "all of their needs aren't being met in their current setting."

Bileca said the idea was still being developed -- but already he fielded several questions about how the state would be accountable for the money put in these accounts.

"How are we making sure we are getting real value out of that?" asked Rep. Joe Saunders, D-Orlando.

After his election, Gov. Rick Scott and his staff suggested he would push "education savings accounts" for all students. These would be pots of state money parents could access, if they pulled their children from public school, to spend on a host of education options, from private schools to home-schooling supplies to college-savings plans.

Though legislation to create such accounts was filed, it never got far, and Scott never pushed it hard.